Average Vote in Elections

By lephead - Posted on 04 November 2010

I have compiled the average vote for the two cities in lived in in 2010 and 2008, to show the trend in change. I don't know if they are representative of the national average, but have striking similarities.

Spokane City 2008 : Dem 54% Rep 45% Ind 1&

Spokane City 2010 : Dem 49% Rep 51%

Helena 2008 : Dem 66% Rep 32% Ind 2%

Helena 2010 : Dem 60% Rep 39% Ind 1%

Spokane suburban 2008 : Dem 39% Rep 61%

Spokane suburban 2010 : Dem 29% Rep 71%

Lewis & Clark suburban/rural 2008 : Dem 51% Rep 47% Ind 2%

Lewis & Clark suburban/rural 2010 : Dem 33% Rep 65% Ind 2%

Both the cities have a 6% swing to the Republicans, while the areas outside the cities went heavily Republican in swings. Both counties large swings were fueled by a huge increase in the Republican state legislative vote. In rural/suburban LC in 2008, the Democrats actually had a 400 vote margin while in 2010, every Republican legislative candidate carried the district outside the city.

So you see, one of the Democrats problems is they can carry their natural base inside cities, but have to appeal to suburban/rural voters to win elections.

I would like to live downtown in a city if I didn't have kiddos, and I love living in the suburbs since I do have kids. I would hate hate hate living in the boonies. For me, that would be so depressing.

I live in the heart of Big City, work in the heart of Big city; don't want it any other way.

Restaurants, and not the chain-kind.

Theaters - large ones for big plays; small ones for quirky, artsy stuff.

Museums.

I can walk to the gym.

I can walk to the grocery, AND the grocery store in my neighborhood has the biggest seleciton of EVERYTHING.

However, I definitely agree with the point about Dems lacking appeal to suburban and rural voters. It's almost like they won't even consider it an option, which just supports the "liberal elitist" label.

Ok, I want some input on this article. To me it makes tons of sense. I am no economist, and I didn't want to start a thread so I just stuck it here, It's not that long and pretty straightforward in reading. I would love some thoughts please. And would also like to know if anyone has ever heard of Jude Wanniski, the man he mentions in the article:

This weekend, House Republican leader John Boehner played out the role of Jude Wanniski on NBC's "Meet The Press."

Odds are you've never heard of Jude, but without him Reagan never would have become a "successful" president, Republicans never would have taken control of the House or Senate, Bill Clinton never would have been impeached, and neither George Bush would have been president.

When Barry Goldwater went down to ignominious defeat in 1964, most Republicans felt doomed (among them the then-28-year-old Wanniski). Goldwater himself, although uncomfortable with the rising religious right within his own party and the calls for more intrusion in people's bedrooms, was a diehard fan of Herbert Hoover's economic worldview.

In Hoover's world (and virtually all the Republicans since reconstruction with the exception of Teddy Roosevelt), market fundamentalism was a virtual religion. Economists from Ludwig von Mises to Friedrich Hayek to Milton Friedman had preached that government could only make a mess of things economic, and the world of finance should be left to the Big Boys – the Masters of the Universe, as they sometimes called themselves – who ruled Wall Street and international finance.

Wow-that article was alot to digest. I had not heard of Jude Wanniski before now. It all makes "scary" sense to me and seeing it all spelled out like that is eye-opening and really makes you think. I truly believe that Obama cares about the deficit more than the Republicans, despite them labeling him as a liberal spender. But my final judgement will rest on how Obama handles extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. A brief extension is understandable if they get a few GOP concessions on other matters, but if they give too much knowing it won't = jobs and will mean a deeper deficit, I just don't get the point. Does anyone (other than Brandon) really think that giving the rich a tax cut extension will lead businesses to hire more (and I don't mean hiring outside the U.S.!) or will reduce the unemployment numbers without some other interventions like infrastructure programs? I definitely don't trust the Republicans and I am skeptical about some of the Democrats and/or Obama's advisors being too cozy with the wealthy lobbyists. So I hope Obama can see the forest throught the trees when he makes the call on tax cuts for the rich. It will be a telling moment. Not to wimp out on formatting a further response, but this response to the article makes sense to me:

I want to mention another aspect of recent GOP
practice: the record amount of earmark spending in the George W. Bush
years, which allowed the GOP to both play Santa and decry government
spending.

I hope we will see real reform under Obama, not just repair. The real
economy needs, once again, to be protected from the investment economy.
And maybe the amount of speculation involving borrowed money should be
more strictly limited.

Pension reform should be a very high priority. Is there any greater
injustice than losing a hard-earned, guaranteed pension, even while
CEO's of the same corporations see huge increases in bonuses and
incomes?

But I am also skeptical that Democrats are up to the task. Our real
hope for change may lie -- probably does lie -- with electing a more
liberal Congress in two years.

Andrew W. Mellon's name should be more widely known. Contrary to the
conventional wisdom, many of us saw this economic and financial disaster
coming as soon as the irresponsible and unecessaary Bush tax cuts were
enacted.

Thanks for the input Kelly, I also believe that extending the tax cuts for the rich should be a bargaining tool for a Short

period, not permanent. Last week 60 minutes had a Reagan Administration person on(can't remember his name). I only caught a bit of it. But he basically said that his party is WRONG. And that taxes need to be raised on everyone. I don't think I agree with all of it, especially the middle class. They are still so sure that tax cuts on the wealthy will mean jobs. I don't agree at all, but why not give tax breaks to those that produce new jobs??

As for a more liberal congress, well being a Democrat, I would have to agree on that. I am biased. But also I have been hearing mixed messages on that. The news analysts say everyone needs to become more center. I also heard from someone(maybe Ed Shultz) that Dems that lost their seats to Tea Party or Republican candidates where the more centered one, and the more progressive ones got re-elected. The percentage was something like 44% lost if they were moderate, and I think 10% if they were more progressive. Have not fact-checked it though.

I also asked a very conservative person at my work if he heard of Jude Wanniski, and he had not. Maybe he needs to be talked about more often by these news analysts, I think Rachel Maddow might get a letter from me, lol.

Again thanks for reading and commenting, I always like to hear what your thoughts are.

Oh, I am not either....but this article is not hard to understand at all...it's very much in layman terms. That's why I posted it. It's explains everything very clearly, at least to me it does. It's not very long either.